Again, let's review this seven day old post.

At the time, Cliff's said that a smelter decision was a month or two away. Looks like McGuinty, after NDP backing to keep it's minority government, can now make the deal with Cliffs, and all of a sudden, a smelter decision will come down next week.

Last month, Cliffs has given a dividend to it's shareholders and has awarded themselves a pay raise.

The announcement of the Sudbury smelter before Cliff's 2012 Annual Meeting to be held on May 8, 2012 at 11:30 a.m. will will be most timely, so Monday May 7th would be a good guess. Don't ya think?

1. CLF needs to get going with some kind of transportation access to Black Thor/BD mine site, starting with the road leading to it, assuming that easement on KWG's corridor is granted, with KWG concurrence) but CLF will need to negotiate with its neighbours for sending those big trucks on their claims. CLF would need this road initially to get the stuff, especially material and heavy equipment, up to the site. Note: This same road would be needed to bring material and equipment up to build the RR by whoever building it. I am betting that the Province the Fed and everyone else want both the road (to serve the FN communities as well) and RR (for mining and tourism?).

Northern part of CLF's ITS will be mostly private, permits only. CLF will not need to negotiate, as Ontario will grant them easement right to BT mine site. Some local FN will be allowed permits. NOT will have to negotiate with CLF for a permit to transport nickel but it should forget about using CLF's road for transport of chromite.

It's all about control of the chromite supply to market, timing and avoiding undue environment assessments. Cliffs controls the road, blocks it's competitors and avoids EA's. Read the ToR!

2. When the initial phase, building the mine to dig up the chromite ore, has been completed, the ore will be transported out form the RoF by RR (much cheaper, and having 100 huge trucks (70 tons each) a day, running along that road would be a NO NO, since they will tear up the road pretty quickly and who would want to compete with those monsters with passenger vehicles (even if you have one of those powerful pick-ups). By that time the RR would be ready (hopefully, it can be build in 3 years, starting from now..I doubt it very much, unless we have a labour force like the Chinese, the Japanese. or the Koreans who would be willing to work around the clock).

There will be no passenger vehicles allowed on this road without permit. CLF will build and maintain the esker road to handle the truck traffic. CLF knows transport costs by RR are cheaper but wants to keep those costs artificially high. The road will allow CLF full control over other players in the ROF. CLF will systematically take out promising mining claims as they are discovered. The RR would draw too much attention to the environment, and trigger need for special EA/EAA approvals. CLF will build the RR after it controls the ROF and the $1.5B GR/YR will give them the cashflow to do it.


3. However, the above statement by Carrabba does not prelude KWG and partners from building the RR, especially if PM Harper is supporting it with some $B (say $0.5-1.0B, and we don't even need to go through the PPP route). CLF wants to fast track this transportation thing anyway, hence CLF it may start some TO (friendly or hostile) very soon. It would be advantageous to take KWG under its wing as a Canadian subsidiary (better dealing with the governments and the FN...and apparently, there is some tax advantage as well).

KWG can not get the $500M PPP because it does not control BD and can not finance the project. It's not shovel ready, they have no backers and CLF has blocked them from developing BD and blocks them from raising capital. Harper supporting KWG? Harper will support CLF, the only corporate with a potential mine revenue that can justify the cost of infrasture at this time and actually has the necessary capital to invest.

Cliffs Chromite Ontario and Cliffs Chromite Far North Inc. are Canadian Corporations indirect, wholly owned subsidiaries of Cliffs Nature Resources. Canadian Income Tax Act (section 66) allows Cliffs to use the Canadian Exploration credits from Spider and Freewest to offset the profits from Wabush Mines and Bloom Lake. KWG had accumulated only $30,596,595 in deferred costs and exploration expenses by the end of September 2010.

4. Potential stakeholders: CLF is not the only entity, there are others: Baosteel, Kashing Li, CN, and the latest one is our home-grown OMERS and one of itspartners Mitsubishi (they are building a war chest of $20 B for investing in infrastructures of about $2B each such as RR, etc in stable areas, e.g. North America and Europe)..Ref.: Babjak at NOT board.

CLF is the only entity with both the capital to invest ($3.3B), $1.5B GR/YR for potential mine with a 45 yr mine life and will have control over the transport corridor as soon as McGuinty makes the ROF deal. The deck is stacked against KWG and the FN.

The FN must win it's legal action for a full Joint Review Panel (EA) and KWG must win the easement decision.